The Positioners
by magicspacehole
Summary: The analyst: cold, calculating, and ruthless. The student: convinced that everything from the moon landing to the moon itself is a lie. The Master: fresh from a hell-bound Mondasian ship and stuck in the galactic equivalent of the backwater. The enemy: a global syndicate capable of changing history at will. And somewhere underground sits a very intelligent, very lonely box.
1. Descent

The Master was falling. Falling and dying.

The two were an appropriate combination, he thought, though the fact that he was in a lift made it somewhat less dramatic.

He was slowly descending and dying.

677… 678…

Over the years he'd thought of a million different scenarios for how his current incarnation would go. It was one of his longest runs, so there had been plenty of time to think about it. A Blaze of Glory was always at the top of the list. To kick it while destroying a planet, or collapsing a star, or bringing down his own corrupt, pretentious civilization always seemed like fantastic options. Send a message. Make a scene. That was him. Less attractive but still perfectly acceptable methods included being assassinated by some dark criminal organization, which for some reason always appealed to him, or murdered by a jealous lover (extremely unlikely, but you never know).

In all that time he never considered the idea that he might be snuffed out by his own hand. But then, one didn't really get to choose these things.

...Unless, of course, one decides to kill oneself.

It was possibly the oddest sort of suicide imaginable. Murdered by his future incarnation. Only _he_ would find himself in that type of situation. It was a special kind of internalized resentment; expert-level self-loathing. Top notch. And to add insult to injury, he'd done it to protect his greatest enemy. Well, no. _He_ hadn't really done it. It was her.

 _Her._

She did this to him. Took it upon herself to decide his time. Couldn't she remember what he had to go through before even landing on that stupid ship? Why he was stuck there in the first place? She was supposed to be the wise one, the one with more experience and more common sense. But something about him had changed by the time he was her. And whatever it was changed her enough to consider suicide as an option.

And so into the pits of hell he descended, lying on his back and unable to move. No one watching. No one to mourn him. The complete opposite of a Blaze of Glory. He wanted to scream, to shout his final words into the void until someone, anyone could hear him.

He sighed loudly. No one heard.

702... 703...

Pain started to creep up on him. The wound on his back was bleeding and he could feel himself getting weaker. Maybe someone was on the way. Maybe he would be saved. He deserved that much.

But he knew it wouldn't happen. When he had escaped Gallifrey they were glad to see the back of him. This was obvious because no one came looking, no alarms went off. So it was only an escape in the figurative sense, really. In the past they sent whole legions after him, commissioned rogues and assassins and put a price on his head. But now it seemed he was just an old relic, one they wanted nothing more than to bury.

No one would be coming for him this time. He was on his own.

But he deserved better than this! This mundane, ordinary, _boring_ ending. Putting aside the fact that he was a descendent of the oldest and most advanced civilization in the Universe, which should have been good for _something_ , he also saved said civilization from its own idiocy more than once. He was owed.

Oh, they did repay him, in a way. They repaid him by locking him up - though not before they rebooted the psycho-social parts of his brain to rectify a past discretion on their part about which they felt only marginally guilty. It was a charitable act, one that allowed him to experience his torturous imprisonment with a clearer head and keener senses. They were sadistic, his people.

His future self must have known what he went through. Should have remembered it. You don't experience something like that and then forget it completely. No, those types of memories stayed with you forever, buried in your subconscious, returning to haunt you every once in a while as painful reminders that yes, those things actually happened to you.

But she acted like she knew nothing. Chastised him. Judged him. Sided with the enemy. _Intractable_. That was what she had been at the end - intractable, and a traitor.

 _Oh_ but he wanted to rip her apart.

 _Her_.

744... 745...

 _Hold back the regeneration._ That was what he would do: hold it back so that she never existed in the first place. But refusing to regenerate was more or less a death sentence at this point. Even so, he'd rather die than become her. At least this way his death would be on his own terms. That'd show her. Or... maybe it would be more offensive to her if he stayed alive. Besides, _not_ dying was always an attractive option.

He was torn between his will to survive and the desire to one-up himself.

The lift accelerated as it descended toward the bottom of the ship, away from the influence of the black hole that threatened its existence. He tried to sit up and make himself more comfortable, but the pain was excruciating now. She'd hit a nerve. Of course she did. He was always very precise when he wanted to be.

He could feel himself getting dizzy. His hands started to tingle as if they were going numb, the first sign of an impending regeneration. He held them out in front of him and sighed. The last time he regenerated he'd been running on adrenaline, the full force of the chameleon arch having hit him like a freight train. He'd successfully escaped the War, and had suddenly found himself with a TARDIS and a new Doctor to torture. Oh, the world of possibilities that had opened up to him at that moment.

There was no grand plan this time. No more Doctor. He had a TARDIS and he had his freedom, but he was a ship without an anchor now. Pointless. Alone.

910… 911…

The lift began to slow down as it approached the bottom floor. The regeneration process was already starting to heal him - he could tell because the pain was receding and he was able to stand, albeit with weak legs. It was cruel, in a way, that the regeneration should heal him first. It was like saying, "here, we're going to fix this body you like and then destroy it completely. You're welcome." The healing meant that he was running out of time. He needed to get back to the hospital, where his TARDIS was kept.

Finding the TARDIS would not be not an issue, for he knew his way around this half of the sprawling colony ship better than anyone. Twenty-eight years he'd been stuck there. Twenty-eight years puttering around with its spiritless humans and its archaic technology. It wasn't a particularly long period of time, not for a Time Lord anyway, but it had been unbearably dull. If you could count on humans to be anything, it was _dull_.

He made it out of the lift and headed slowly toward the hospital. His back was wet with blood, which made it difficult to move and annoyed him to no end. He stumbled pathetically through the streets and up to the hospital entrance, thankful that no one could see him at that particular moment.

What a wonderful adventure it would have been had his future self just gone along with the plan and escaped with him. The Universe would not have stood a chance with the two of them together.

There was a second, as he climbed the steps into the building, when he pondered exactly what it was he was hoping to get out of such a partnership. Did he want her around because she would have made him twice as powerful? Or because he was lonely? Was he really so pathetic that his only chance at companionship was himself?

Ridiculous. It was self-preservation, that was all. He was protecting his future, ensuring their survival - a survival that she saw fit to throw away in some grand attempt to save her soul. Stand with the Doctor? Go along with his suicide mission? What utter nonsense.

 _The Doctor_. For the first time since leaving floor 507 he realized that there was a very good chance the Doctor was dead. Really, truly dead.

He smiled.

The pain came and went in waves now, spreading from his back to his limbs and blurring his vision. He hobbled down the stairs to the basement, fighting the urge to faint. His old office looked exactly the same as when he'd left it, which for him was almost a month ago, but for the office it must have been years. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust.

It was in this room that he wasted years trying to piece together the components needed to fix the dematerialization circuit, after he'd gotten bored of ruling a dead society and decided to start making Cybermen for the hell of it. And it was here that he'd spent his evenings listening to Bill's incessant babbling on and on and on and on about the stupid Doctor. Not that he disliked her - in fact, she was pleasant company during the wait. But the time he spent in quiet anticipation of her inevitable upgrade made it so much more satisfying when it finally happened.

Ah, the look on the Doctor's face when he realized… He'd never forget that face. Not ever. Not if he could help it.

He smiled again.

The TARDIS was disguised as a closet door. There was no reason to worry that it would be discovered, however. And if it was, there was not a single soul on this ship that would know what to do with it. But he did so love disguises.

He opened the door and the lights switched on in the central control room. There had been no time to establish the standard telepathic link with the ship when he first boarded, mostly because he was in the middle of stealing it and didn't feel like stopping to get to know it over a cuppa. But it had adapted well enough. Still bleeding profusely, he made his way down to the second level to attempt the installation of the new circuit. The sensation in his hands was much worse now and he could barely feel the wires and components that he was assaulting with his poor maintenance skills.

The clock was ticking, and the TARDIS needed to be fully operational if he was going to be able to use it to stop his regeneration. Supposedly it was impossible to stop a regeneration without dying. That was the whole point of the process: you were dying, and this would fix it. But he'd picked up a few tricks since his return to Gallifrey, and it was not like this was his first go 'round. In fact, he wasn't sure what number he was on now. It would probably be prudent to start keeping track of those, he thought.

With the circuit in place the TARDIS whirred to life. As he ascended the stairs to the upper level the control panels came on for the first time in decades. He could sense the ship's excitement.

"I didn't abandon you, I promise," he said, patting the console.

His hand stopped mid-pat. "Oh hell," he muttered, embarrassed to find himself talking lovingly to a machine. It _was_ the most intelligent type of machine in the Universe, but still.

He set course for Gallifrey because it would be the easiest destination for the TARDIS to attempt while pulling away from the black hole. He had no desire to return there, not after what they did to him. He just needed a way to free himself from the force of gravity that trapped him there.

The dematerialization was rough, but successful. At least there was one thing he could say his future self did properly. As soon as the TARDIS was free he collapsed into a chair, exhausted. He watched with relief as the image of the ship on his monitor faded away. _Good riddance_.

He pictured the Doctor in his head, being descended upon by hundreds of Cybermen, trapped, with nowhere to go. Then he thought of his future self, dying alone in the forest. That image was considerably less pleasing.

Without warning the pain in his back made a triumphant return. In fact, every cell in his body seemed to be exploding with increasing speed and intensity. It felt like fire and ice and electricity and all the other dangerous and painful extremes the universe had to offer, rolling over him all at once. He had to make his way back to the console before it was too late. The three feet between his chair and the center of the room suddenly felt like miles - who the hell designed these things? He could not stand, so he crawled pathetically toward the controls, pulling himself up and hanging on for dear life. Complex calculations were going through his head as he tried to figure out the right time to do it. It had to be precise or he would not be able to stop the transformation. Or worse, he would botch it.

A pressure was building inside of him and he felt like he would explode at any second. There was a joke in there somewhere, he knew, but his mind wasn't clear enough to think of it. The place where he'd been stabbed was burning hot and it pushed all of the anger and rage that he felt towards his future self up to the surface.

Her face appeared in his mind's eye, laughing at him. Mocking him. It wasn't fair. He didn't want to be her. He didn't want it. It wasn't fair.

He had to stay focused. The only power he had over his transformation at that point was telepathic, and if he didn't concentrate he would not be able to channel the energy.

Galaxies exploded in his mind. He could see all of time and space - the infinite majesty of it, the beauty of nothingness. This was the moment, just before the big bang. He grabbed a hold of the console and directed all of the regeneration energy into the TARDIS. Screaming in agony, he pushed his mind to force the change to stop, using the ship as an anchor. He could feel every inch of his body bursting into atoms. The process never got easier no matter how many times he'd done it before.

Then it stopped.

 _Everything_ stopped. Except for his heavy breathing, there was total silence. All of the instrument panels were dead. The lights had gone out.

Before he could adjust to the calm, the TARDIS gave a massive lurch, throwing him clear of the console. He hit one of the back walls with a painful thud and stars exploded in front of his eyes. The ship came back to life with a vengeance. At the center of the room the instrument panels were screaming, almost as though they were experiencing the same agony he had just felt seconds earlier.

Head reeling, he made his way back to the center. The coordinates he had entered before his departure were gone, and the navigational readings were not making any sense. They said he was everywhere and nowhere and not going in any specific direction, which was not possible because one, it just wasn't, and two, the TARDIS was jostling around like it was tumbling in a giant cosmic dryer. The ship was definitely moving, but he had no way of controlling its trajectory.

He couldn't even determine whether he had rematerialized or not. He forced the rematerialization override but nothing happened. The velocity regulator had failed on him, and he didn't dare look at the dimension circuits. He worked quickly to redirect the power while fighting off the urge to vomit or pass out or both, his body still shaking from the aborted regeneration attempt. Finally, after several minutes of admittedly poor piloting, he managed to steady the TARDIS long enough for him to be able to stand properly without holding on to something.

The trajectory monitor switched back on and he was able to reestablish his location. But something was off. The coordinates weren't right for this part of the galaxy and there were planets without names showing up on the view screen. He had never seen a TARDIS fail to identify a planet, or at least the associated system. He entered the coordinates to Gallifrey once again but nothing came up.

There was no Gallifrey.

The mapping system said it should be there, and he _knew_ it was there because he'd just been to the damnable place only decades before, but there was nothing. Just empty space. He punched the screen in frustration.

Pain rolled over him again like a tidal wave and he doubled over in agony. His body was still trying to heal itself and it wasn't giving up without a fight. Once again he redirected the excess energy into the TARDIS, and once again it exploded like a bomb, throwing him to the floor.

The last thing he saw before passing out was a message on the view screen confirming a new target trajectory for a planet called Earth.


	2. A Slightly Shorter Descent

Of all the manifestations of reality that could have resulted from the randomness of the Universe, Abigail Reyes was stuck in the one where she got to work next to a man whose breathing sounded like a dying goose. It was some kind of cosmic torture, she believed, some cruel joke having to listen to Reginald Swain's rhythmic wheezes day in and day out.

"Do you have a cold, Reg?" she asked sweetly as the clock hit 11am-the third hour she's had to endure him.

"No. Why do you always ask me that?"

"I worry for your health."

He gave her a confused look that she ignored.

Most of the time Abby was nice. She bottled up her sarcasm and frustration just like any good little worker bee. But the past month had been a spectacular mess, and it was getting increasingly difficult to be pleasant in such an environment.

The Directorate of Analysis, the CIA's key department for interpreting and disseminating intelligence, had several smaller divisions representing various regions of the world and special issues. Abby's division, which focused on weapons of mass destruction, was currently at the bottom of the Agency's priority list, ever since the North Korean regime fell. And terrorists tended not to spend their time buying nuclear bombs or stealing Small Pox. Even the forensic accounting unit was more active than her team.

So when Abby's confidential informants started disappearing, no one cared enough to listen. The black market buyers and shadow government officials that kept an eye on things for her suddenly failed to send reports. Within a span of two weeks the CIA had little to no surveillance to cover underground WMD movement.

She contacted her boss, who contacted _her_ boss, who proceeded to tell them that no, they were not going to redirect resources in the Middle East and Asia right now because terrorism was a far more prevalent threat, and anyway they already had "consultants" taking care of the bulk of the work.

Soon after that, more than just people started disappearing. Chinese bioweapon labs, underground plutonium caches in Iran, even the Soviet-era missiles she had been tracking-all gone. Image analysis determined that several buildings that had been flagged as potential nuclear or chemical manufacturing sites suddenly disappeared from the view of satellites. At least, to Abby they seemed to disappear. Everyone else insisted that they had never been there.

Today she was forced to add yet another location to the growing list of missing things that she was keeping in her head. The last few hours had been spent agonizing over aerial photos and her eyes were tired and dry. She rubbed them roughly and covered her face with her hands. There has to be a reason behind this, she thought. Some simple explanation, some technical glitch.

Unable to look at pictures of empty lots any longer, she threw them into a folder and walked across the office to Tyler, who was an actual imagery analyst. She slammed the offending pictures down on his desk, making him jump back in fright.

"What the hell, Abby?"

"Look," she pointed. "Look at this. What do you see?"

He rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

"Just look!"

He held the picture up and, after a few seconds, gave a half-hearted shrug. "Nothing," he answered.

"One week ago there was a massive complex there. One. Week. Ago."

"Not possible. If there was there'd be signs. Shadows from where buildings stood or tire marks or something. It looks like this area has never been touched."

Abby knew this already. In fact, before she started reviewing the images that day she had already tried to confirm the existence of the complex through her informants. But those individuals had disappeared just like everyone else. She contacted Operations, the people in charge of spies, to see whether they had heard from her informants, only to be told that there was no record of them.

"Tyler, I _know_ there was something here. Last week I had images of it, and the week before I had a contact going in and out of there regularly! But I can't find anything now!"

"Maybe you just have the wrong coordinate region."

Abby shook her head, trying to stay calm. "Huge industrial complexes don't just disappear without a trace. It's not possible." She knelt down beside him to be level with his face. "Tyler, _you_ are the one that first identified this place for me," she reasoned, pointing at the photo. "Back in March. Don't you remember?"

He looked worried now. "Sorry, I really don't."

"You told me it must have been there for... years..."

She had a thought. The CIA had been collecting satellite imagery for decades. If her missing building was old enough, she might be able to find something in the Archive, where all of the outdated, un-digitized images were kept.

"Gotta go," she said, turning around and heading back across the office. She stopped at her desk for a second to grab her ID and shoved the folder of images into her bag.

"Where are you going?" Reg inquired between wheezes.

"Archive. Be back later."

* * *

The walk to the Archive was a labyrinth with about six security points to go through. Twenty minutes went by before Abby finally managed to make it to the elevator. She reviewed the images as she descended and made note of their locations: Azerbaijan, Pakistan, southern Iran.

There was a small TV screen built into the wall of the elevator that showed cable network news. Several pundits were arguing back and forth about the collapse of North Korea, which occurred just two weeks before. Analysts and academics were struggling to explain exactly what had happened, even though the official line was that the State Department had negotiated the dismantling of the regime.

Abby wasn't privy to that particular information, but she knew from experience the type of man the North Korean leader was, and someone like that would never just "negotiate" his own demise.

The elevator started to shake and then came to a sudden stop. The lights went out. Abby held on to the wall to steady herself and felt around for the buttons. The last thing she needed was to be stuck in an elevator all damn day. She pushed the bottom-most button, which she hoped would call the security office, but nothing happened.

"Son of a f-"

The elevator started back up and continued its descent like nothing had happened. The lights were still off but at least she was moving. It went along rather noisily and finally stopped at sub-basement 2, one floor too high. It wasn't worth the risk; Abby got out and headed for the stairs.

There were no offices down here, just libraries and classrooms. She walked down the hallway and into the stairwell and noticed that the lights were flickering on and off here too.

Sub-basement 3 was home to the Archive, a massive library and storage facility that housed everything from de-classified documents to decommissioned satellites. It was a large, darkly lit room reminiscent of a cathedral (if said cathedral had been built by Soviet Russia) with rows and rows of books and boxes and myriad other things stacked eight or nine shelves high. It took her a while to find what she was looking for: an entire wing of the Archive was devoted to image analysis. She navigated to the Middle East/North Africa section and found several boxes covering the past four decades.

She checked that no one was around, plopped herself down in the middle of the aisle, and started searching. And searching. And searching. Minutes went by. Then hours. Every image within the relevant coordinates was empty. It was like someone had flown over the earth taking photos of what must have been one particularly attractive bit of desert. 1990s, 1980s… There was simply no evidence to support her claim that anything ever existed in those areas. Her frustration was mounting.

It was about four hours in when she heard it: a dull scraping noise, intermittent, somewhere off in the distance. Rats were the first thing that came to her mind, and she stood up quickly to avoid them, but then she remembered that everything at Langley was monitored, from the elevators to the vents to the air that circulated through the building. Even rats were unlikely to infiltrate this place.

The sound grew louder. It had a pattern to it-possibly footsteps. "Hello?" she called out.

It stopped.

Abby set down the files she was holding and walked softly to the end of the aisle, which was a challenge in heels. She held her breath, listening intently for any sign of movement. Feeling brave, she rounded the corner and was suddenly face to face with a very large pen.

Behind the pen was a man. His hands were covered in blood and he was breathing heavily, looking very much like someone who'd just been run over or mugged. He wore a long formal jacket that was also covered in blood. The pen was pointed directly at her face. The message was clear.

Abby took a few steps back. The stranger eyed her intensely, as if he was trying to read her mind. He looked either angry or crazy; she couldn't tell which, so she landed on rabid. He looked rabid.

"Who are you?" she asked with all the bold indifference she could muster while keeping an eye on that strange pen. She did work for the CIA after all, so she knew there were more than a few writing implements that could kill you.

He did not answer. He seemed to be in a state of mingled shock and rage.

"Look dude, I've had a really bad day-"

"Am I a woman?"

Of all the things he could have said, this one topped the list of completely unexpected.

"Wh- what?"

"AM I A WOMAN? I need to know. TELL ME!" His voice sounded hoarse. The near shouting seemed to hurt him and he grabbed his chest in pain.

She took a few steps back and eyed him suspiciously. "Uh, no. Not a woman."

"Oh thank the Universe," he said, collapsing to his knees.

Abby frowned. "Well it's not _that_ bad, thank you very much." She moved to help him up but he pointed the pen at her again. It did not seem nearly as threatening with him on the floor.

"Do you need help?"

He let out a harsh, derisive laugh. Then he looked murderous. It was like a kaleidoscope, watching his face. "Where am I? What stupid planet is this? Do not say Earth. If you say Earth I swear to god I will kill you."

This ranked as number two on the list of completely unexpected statements. "Okay. I won't say Earth."

He was livid. As he pulled himself off the ground, Abby took the chance to grab her phone from her pocket. She just needed a few seconds to send a text to Security...

The man seemed to be feeling himself up now. He patted his chest and his face and ran fingers through his hair. Whatever he found there apparently satisfied him, because he sighed in obvious relief. After a few more moments of self-discovery he turned his attention back to Abby, who thankfully had just finished her text. Once again she found herself on the wrong end of a pen.

"What year is it?" he demanded.

And there was number three.

"Twenty-eighteen. Been asleep for a while then?" She had to keep him talking until Security could get there. It was ingrained in the minds of all CIA employees that if you see something, you say something. She was not going to be responsible for letting a possible foreign element (he sounded British) run loose in the sacred halls of the Archive. "What are you going to do with that pen, if I may ask? It looks awfully threatening."

He sensed her sarcasm. "It's a screwdriver. Not a pen. And it can stop your little human heart easily enough. Shall I show you?"

She frowned. "What do you mean 'human?'"

He smiled. There was a madness behind it that Abby did not care for. He raised his "screwdriver" even higher, but before he could use it he doubled over in pain. She thought for a second that he might vomit. Instead, a small cloud of gold-colored smoke came out of his mouth. It seemed to glow in the darkness of the Archive.

Abby was not prepared for this ridiculousness. Her experience being what it was, her mind immediately went to the worst-case scenarios: this man had, or was, a bioweapon. Or he had some kind of radioactive substance on him.

"That is _much_ better," he said, standing up straight.

More scared than she cared to admit, Abby began backing up in earnest. The man noticed right away.

"Where are you going?" He seemed more alert now, more coherent, which somehow made him even more frightening. "I was just going to show you how my screwdriver worked." He stepped toward her slowly, almost sauntering, until he was only a few feet away. She felt vaguely like she was being circled by a predator.

It was obvious to her now that he was hoping she would try to run, like it was a game. If he had a weapon, biological or otherwise, she was about to be the first victim.

Unsure of what else to do, she walked right up and punched him square in the face.

* * *

When the barrage of armed security guards came in five minutes later they found the man lying unconscious on the Archive floor. Abby was sitting beside him with a box, rummaging through satellite photos from the 1970s.


	3. The Men in Black (and Red)

Gavin Tanner was a PhD candidate at George Washington University. He was also a conspiracy theorist.

He'd always had a penchant for seeing way too much into things. When he was seven, rather than responding to the revelation that Santa Claus wasn't real by being sad or angry, he became an ardent atheist. He had insisted to his parents that there was no reason he should believe in God when they'd lied to him about Santa, and nothing they did could change his mind.

Teachers lied too. In high school he got in trouble more than once for arguing with the faculty over the veracity of their history curriculum-they were technically agents of the government, after all.

"Trust no one." That was his motto.

The only thing that didn't lie, he believed, was math. Math had no secrets. It was reliable. Permanent.

In his twenties he calmed down a bit. Went to college. Had fun. Studied physics. He still kept articles of interest, and his wall was covered with information about unsolved mysteries, particularly those related to aliens. It wasn't until last year, when someone on one of his online forums mentioned a new kind of conspiracy, that he fell back into the old habits.

They were called the Men in Black and Red, or MBR for short. People all over the internet claimed to have seen them. But somehow, despite the large volume of claims, no one had ever gotten a single picture. Or video. Or anything, for that matter.

The story went that the MBR were agents of a shadow government, probably linked to the CIA or NSA, though possibly Russian, that were used to subdue the populace by any means necessary. They were all men, roughly the same face and build, and were always seen wearing the same outfit: a black suit with red tie. When someone was a threat, the MBR would erase them. Not just kidnap or kill, but erase them so that they were never found.

Some argued that the MBR were well funded-hence why many theorists assumed a government connection-because it seemed that they had incredibly advanced technology, at least according to the witnesses.

Over the last few months, however, the stories just stopped. Nobody online reported any new sightings or theories, even though there was plenty in the news to suggest that something bigger was going on. Eventually it got boring and Gavin gave up checking the forums everyday, logging news articles, or blogging analyses. After a while he forgot about the MBR completely.

He had notoriously bad timing.

The day that would change Gavin's life forever started off in that boring, monotonous way days usually did. He got up, skipped breakfast in favor of coffee, wrote a ten page essay in twenty minutes (due to hand in twenty minutes after that), and checked the news.

"Whatcha doin'?"

Hannah, his girlfriend, came out of the bedroom wearing his t-shirt. She kissed him on the cheek and took a seat beside him at the table (after moving a stack of books to the floor).

"Checkin' the news," he said. "How did you sleep?"

"Better. I bet I look like hell though."

He laughed. To him she looked perfect all the time. But she'd never believe him if he told her. "You don't," he said anyway.

"Uh-huh. Don't you have a class?"

"Yep." He closed his laptop and put it in his bag, kissed Hannah goodbye, and headed out the door.

"Chinese tonight!" she called after him. "Don't forget!"

* * *

Gavin was in the astrophysics program, so his classes on campus were almost always followed by labs. It kept him in downtown Washington for most of the day. When his condensed matter physics lab finally ended, he headed toward the Metro at the edge of campus, mathematical equations running through his head like music.

He was on the train platform before he remembered he was supposed to pick up Chinese food for Hannah. He doubled back, cutting through an alleyway between the political science building and a parking garage.

There were a million little routine things that people did every day that had no impact on their general future, at least not in a meaningful way. But every once in a while one of those little things pushes us to the left or to the right just enough to change _every_ thing. Had it not been for Gavin's headphones being tangled, and him deciding to stop walking long enough to straighten them out, he would never have seen the man on the corner.

He stood near the curb, right across the street from Gavin, who was still in the alleyway and hidden in shadow. At first glance he looked normal; just a guy smoking a cigarette. He barely registered to Gavin until he turned around. The red tie he wore was almost the color of blood, but Gavin could see it clearly under the street lights. It looked fashionable with the black suit.

At first he didn't think much of it. Naturally his mind went right to where it always goes, and he quickly recalled all the MBR stories he could remember. But it was more habit than anything. He didn't actually believe that there was a chance this man was anything out of the ordinary. It would be cool if he was, but he probably wasn't.

The man threw his cigarette out into the street and walked over to a black van parked on the curb. He then proceeded to open the back door. Out of the van came another man in the exact same suit and tie, followed by two people that appeared to be tied up. They had hoods over their heads.

Gavin's mind went blank. He stood there, knowing exactly what he was seeing but not actually knowing it was what he was seeing because it couldn't possibly be what he saw. But it was. The two men steered their victims (?) by the arms roughly across the sidewalk and into the parking garage. He took as many photos as he could before they disappeared into the building.

It was Christmas and birthdays and vindication and truth, all at once. Here, now, was definitive proof that the MBR existed. Heart pounding with excitement, Gavin headed down the street a bit before crossing over to the side of the parking garage and entering through the opposite end. He looked around the first floor but they were already gone.

He went up to the second floor, then the third, and the fourth. It wasn't until he was on the roof that he found them.

Hiding behind a car, he got out his phone, put it on silent (he'd seen enough spy movies to avoid the common mistakes) and began to record. The victims were on their knees, still hooded, while the Men walked around a makeshift circle made of what looked like lights on tripods. He wondered what they could possibly be doing. As he stared at the two victims struggling against their bonds a horrible thought struck him.

There was a good possibility that he was about to see these people die.

All the times he'd been theorizing on the forums, blogging, watching the news, putting things together… He never once thought about the fact that people were actually getting hurt. It was always a part of the theories-that the MBR "disappeared" people-but the consequences of it never hit him until now.

Recording the event suddenly felt dirty, perverted. He should probably have been calling the cops or something, but he didn't dare move. He continued to watch as the Men retreated from the circle and the things on tripods began to light up. It looked like something from Star Trek. He couldn't have stopped recording now-this was beyond anything he ever imagined.

The light was blue and nebulous and it reminded Gavin of something, though he didn't know what. It traveled in a circular path from tripod to tripod, getting brighter as it gained speed, until it was almost white. There was no noise, only the whimpering of the victims, who apparently could not speak.

And then they were gone. The light reached some sort of singularity and erupted in a silent, contained explosion. When it receded the victims had disappeared.

Gavin ran for it. He ducked behind parked car after parked car back to the stairwell, down all five floors, and out into the street. He stopped for a moment, panicking and out of breath and trying to decide what to do next. Then he saw the van.

He now had proof not only that the MBR existed, but that they were killing people too. He needed as much evidence as he could gather. Hoping that the men would take their time coming back, Gavin approached the van and tried opening the back door. It was unlocked. He searched everywhere: glove box, center console, he even looked under the seats. All empty. The back was empty too. All he managed to find was a small golden pin with the number eight on it sitting on the dashboard.

Unwilling to stay any longer, he pocketed the pin and fled back into the alley way. He did not stop until he was the whole way home.

* * *

"Hannah? Hannah! Come here, you gotta see this!"

Gavin threw his bag on the sofa and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. To prevent the loss of data he immediately connected to the cloud. The photos and video were sent to his computer and he sat down at the table and began to search through them, his heart racing.

"Hannah you're not gonna believe what happened." She'd never been particularly interested in conspiracies, but she never discouraged him from finding the truth, either. And he needed someone right now to tell him what to do next: go to the cops? Spread the info online? Hide?

He started searching through the photos. The Men were there. It was too dark to discern their outfits clearly, but they were present. The victims, however, were missing. He reviewed photo after photo. The MBR were clearly shown standing in front of the van, then walking into the garage. But they were alone.

"No no no no no please be there. Please." He switched to the video. The roof, the tripods, the Men themselves-they were all present. But the circle was empty. He checked frame after frame but it was useless. Both the victims and the strange blue light that had taken them did not exist in any of the photos.

"Dammit!" He slammed his laptop shut.

Sitting in silence he suddenly realized that Hannah still had not come out of his room. He knocked on the door. "Hannah? Are you up?" No response. He opened it to find his bed empty and the TV off. She was probably out getting food, since he was so late getting back, or maybe out with friends. But he was still running on adrenaline and terrified by what he had seen, so he felt the need to immediately locate her.

She was not in his phone when he tried to call, not in his contacts or frequent numbers. All the texts from her were gone. A word came to his mind as he recalled what he witnessed and what he knew of the MBR: _erased_. No. It wasn't possible. Luckily he remembered that he had kept her number hanging on the fridge from the night they first met.

It wasn't there. Nor was her purse, or the shoes she kept in the corner. All their pictures were gone too. At this point Gavin felt nauseous. He opened his computer again and searched all the social media sites that she frequented. Her accounts were gone.

He called Hannah's best friend Mike, whom he normally avoided contact with, but it was an emergency and he was desperate.

"Hello?"

"Hey Mike, it's Gavin. Have you seen Hannah today?"

"Who?"

"Hannah. I can't find her."

"I don't know a Hannah. Who is this?"

He glanced at the screen. It was definitely the right number, and that was Mike's voice.

"Gavin. I need to know if-"

"Sorry man, wrong number."

Mike hung up.

Fear overwhelmed him. It was surreal: all those movies and shows he watched and all the times he sat there thinking _I could do that; I could definitely figure that out; I bet I'd make a good spy/survivor/vigilante_ -now he found himself in a real situation and all he wanted to do was hide in a closet.

He started frantically shoving things into his backpack, grabbed his phone and chargers, and made to leave. Before he reached the door he turned back. His father's old hunting knife sat in a box in the closet. It was the only thing he owned that could be considered a legitimate weapon, and now he pulled it out and hid it at the bottom of his bag.

He did not know if they were after him, if Hannah was really missing or even if what he saw that night was real. But he wasn't about to take any chances.

Hannah… he vowed to find her, whatever it took. He just had to make it to a safe place first. He had to be smart. Trust no one. That had always been his motto. And now it had to become his life.


	4. Agent Masterson

_They waited together, hiding out in an upstairs room, watching the little humans flit about preparing for the inevitable._

 _"They don't stand a chance," he murmured._

 _"Naturally. Makes you wonder how they ever managed to leave their planet, let alone build a ship like this." Her words were mocking but, oddly, her voice was not._

 _He watched as the Doctor stood at the edge of the property, surveying the land. "He knows it's hopeless," he told her. "He has to know. Why doesn't he just leave?"_

 _She joined him at the window. Her eyes found the Doctor below and for a brief second she looked sad. "He's a stubborn old moose. Or maybe he wants to die. I don't know." She kept staring at the enemy, seemingly deep in thought._

 _"Well if we don't leave soon, we won't stand a chance either."_

 _She gave him a scathing look. "And whose fault is that?"_

* * *

"Oh good, you're awake."

His hearts were pounding in his ears and he had a massive headache. Whoever was yelling needed to cease immediately before he decided to try his hand at vivisection. His brain struggled to process any sort of awareness.

 _Master. My name is the Master._

He opened his eyes. He was sitting in a chair, apparently, with his head resting on the table in front of him. His arms, which took a while to make themselves known, were tied behind his back. No- handcuffed. He was in handcuffs.

He sat up quite suddenly. This resulted in an extreme bout of dizziness that only added to the headache. His senses were quickly returning and the bright lights of the room intensified into tiny suns. He closed his eyes to block them out.

Someone banged on the table.

"Still with us?"

There were two humans sitting across from him. One wore a suit and tie and the other had a gun on its hip. Images flashed through his mind, pleasing images of slitting their throats or running them through a grinder, or taking his screwdriver to them.

 _Screwdriver_. It was gone. His jacket pocket was definitely empty.

"Why don't you start by telling us who you are?" said one of the humans.

Looking around the room, he attempted to assess the situation. He did not know where he was, only that it was probably on Earth because that was what the TARDIS's trajectory had been set for. And it looked like Earth: blocky and boring and paper everywhere. Always paper. There was some of it on the table in front of the humans, along with a laptop and what looked like a black wallet. They were staring at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Well they were going to have to wait a while. He had other concerns.

The first was figuring out what had happened to his TARDIS. He remembered trying not to regenerate, and succeeding, and somewhat failing, and succeeding again, and passing out. Most likely in that order, though unclear. There was a point where he was outside the TARDIS, and he sincerely hoped he'd thought to disguise it before wandering off.

Hell, he didn't even know if he'd put it in park.

"Tell us who you are," the human with the gun demanded again in what he probably assumed was a threatening tone.

The Master had a sudden thought: if he was on Earth and anywhere near the 21st century (which, judging by the clothing and architecture, was very likely) then there was a chance he might be recognized. He did, after all, become Prime Minister of some place and then kill the President of another. _Was that here_? Yes that was here. Probably. It was all a blur at the moment. He laughed at the thought of the President disintegrating.

"Something funny?" asked the Suit.

He could not decide whether he wanted to somehow avoid being recognized, or to stand up and shout "Hey! Remember that time I killed the President?" just for the reaction. He decided to test the waters.

"Where am I?" he inquired with mock indifference.

The humans looked confused. "You know exactly where you are," said the one with the gun. "Don't play games."

"Why would I know where I am?"

They ignored his question. "Tell us who you are right now." Gun Guy must really have thought he sounded intimidating.

"Or…?"

"Or we'll put a bag over your head and throw you into a black site." The Suit shot Gun Guy an annoyed look. "I mean, we don't actually have black sites," he lied. "But we definitely-"

The Suit interjected. "You were found passed out on the floor of one of the most secure facilities in the world. Are we really supposed to believe you don't know where you are?"

The Master smiled. This was probably the seven-hundredth time he'd been in a situation like this. He knew that if you let your interrogators ramble on, thinking they had the situation under their control, they would provide all the information you needed. Eventually.

He was in some kind of facility, then, most likely military or government. The humans sounded American, and he only knew that because of the many times he had been required to sit on the phone with Americans while he was Prime Minister, listening to their incessant complaints and demands. What a horrible couple of months that had been.

The Suit leaned in closer and whispered to him. "Look, if you're an operative all you have to do is show us some credentials. We won't ask questions. So you got drunk, wandered off… It happens. You sound British; the Archive is a secure facility but it's Five-Eyes accessible. You're not going to get black listed for showing up there if you just tell us the truth."

Only about a fourth of those words made sense. "Oh," the Master whispered back, "are you the good cop then? Wait-drunk? What do you mean drunk?"

"Yeah," Gun Guy chimed in, "the person that found you said you were drunk and passed out."

He thought back to those few moments he'd spent outside the TARDIS. He was sure he'd killed someone, or at least made an attempt to.

It didn't matter. Now he knew where his TARDIS was: some place called the Archive. This was too easy.

The door opened and another human came in. "Agent Bauer, can you go get us some coffee please?" This one was shorter than the other two, most likely female but unclear. She had brown hair that was tied up in a way that reminded him of something.

"But we can't leave you alone with him until-"

"He's in handcuffs."

Gun Guy started to argue but the female gave him a stern look. He hesitated, put a hand on his gun holster, then sighed and walked out. The Suit followed.

The female sat across from him with her hands folded neatly on the table. She stared at him for a moment before speaking, as if she was debating how to proceed.

The Master smiled menacingly. He had a good menacing smile and dammit he was going to use it.

This had no effect on the female. "Do you know where you are?" she asked.

"Not a clue."

"What's your name?"

He did not respond. He was still deciding how to play this. He could either be taken to his TARDIS without trouble or kill everyone in the building to get there. What did he feel like doing at the moment?

"If you are an infiltrator this will not play out well for you." This one must have thought she was intimidating too. "Though, I have to say, that would probably be the worst attempt at infiltration I have ever seen. Whoever hired you will not be happy."

"So you think I'm an infiltrator?"

"You were found in the Archive. Add to that the fact that you threatened me with this-" she pulled out his screwdriver and set it on the table, "-if this is indeed a weapon. Your accent is rather conspicuous as well. I'm assuming you're British?"

"Am I? I had no idea."

"Well if you have credentials we can clear this up quickly. And we can't do that without a name. Trust me, your best option is to cooperate with us so we can figure this out."

The sudden appearance of the screwdriver changed things. He started to fiddle with the handcuffs.

"You want a name?" he offered, feeling confident. "Try Harold Saxon."

There was no look of dawning comprehension, or sudden fear, or surprise. It was a total disappointment. The woman opened her laptop and began typing.

Well that wasn't right. "Harold Saxon?" he tried again. "No? Former Prime Minister of-"

"There are eight-hundred and twelve Harold Saxons in the United States, forty-two of which are foreign born. You're going to have to give me more than that."

"You really don't recognize me? Come on. I killed the President!" It was a bit of a brag, but he'd earned it.

She blinked slowly a few times as if she was trying to comprehend what he said. "That's nice. Was this a recent adventure?" Her tone was patronizing; she was clearly questioning his sanity now.

"Wait. So you're saying Harold Saxon was never Prime Minister?"

"Prime Minister of where, exactly?"

"And he never killed the President?"

She shook her head in confusion.

He was on the verge of a horrible realization. "What about the Daleks? Was Earth ever attacked by Daleks?"

"What the hell is a Dalek?"

It was not possible. Or maybe it was. If he'd put enough regeneration energy into the TARDIS to throw it off course, there was a chance that he could have ripped through the fabric of space, but that should have just left him spinning outside the Vortex. It appeared that somehow, inexplicably, he'd crossed the Void.

"What about Cybermen? Ever hear of them?"

"You're only making it worse for yourself by trying to distract me. The CIA has the best resources in the world. We will find out who you are."

He was in the middle of unlocking one of the handcuffs when he fully registered what the female had said. So he was in the CIA. The Earth one. What was it called? Central Intelligence something-or-other. The urge to kill everyone within a one-mile radius suddenly subsided, replaced with a burning curiosity.

He still needed to find the TARDIS. Once he did he would be able to verify exactly what happened. But now that he knew where it was and where _he_ was, there was no need to hurry.

"Alright," he said, "I'll tell you the truth. I'm an operative."

"Okay then, what's your name?"

He hesitated. "John. John Master…son. John Masterson" You could put anything with the name "John" and it would sound human, right? It wasn't as clever as "Harold Saxon" but he was not at the top of his game at the moment.

The woman typed his name into the computer. He watched her carefully as she searched. Then he realized who she was. Bits of the scene outside the TARDIS started coming back to him.

"Where'd you learn to punch like that?" he asked, feeling the bruising on his face.

"Dating," she said.

He distinctly remembered now that at one point he'd asked her if he was a woman. And what planet it was. And what year it was.

"Hang on, why did you tell them I was drunk and passed out?"

"Because I didn't feel like explaining everything and having to go to security hearings to testify about how I found a crazy hobo in the- oh." She looked surprised.

"What?"

"You're in here."

" _What_?"

She turned the laptop around so he could see. Sure enough, there was a file on him: John Masterson, MI6. It gave everything from date of birth to blood type and job title. On the right hand side was a rather unflattering picture of him, round faced and clean-shaven.

"You seem surprised," she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

He straightened up and tried to make himself look nonchalant. "No. Not at all."

"Says here you're on rotation from MI6 as part of a joint task force."

"Yep that's me. Task force." He wasn't even going to try to figure out how he managed to get his name in their system.

The woman was clearly unconvinced. "Well then," she said, closing the laptop and standing up. "Shall we find where you're supposed to be? This is yours, by the way." She handed him the wallet that had been sitting there.

It took him a second to realize what it was. Weeks ago, when he was stuck with the Doctor and his future self in the fake countryside, he'd gotten so bored that he took to pickpocketing. He had completely forgotten that he had it.

"What about that?" He gestured at the screwdriver.

"Ha ha no. I'll be keeping that for now."

"Why? Don't you trust me?"

"Of course not."

Well he didn't have his screwdriver, but on the bright side he was now inside the CIA, legally, with full access and psychic paper. _Must be my birthday_ , he thought.


	5. Questions

Within the first five minutes of knowing John Masterson Abby deduced three things: 1) he was an asshole, 2) he was lying through his teeth, and 3) he was dead useful.

The choice to lie to Security about what happened in the Archive put her in a bad position. She still wasn't even sure what made her do it. Curiosity, most likely. It wasn't every day you were asked what planet you were on or what year it was. Of course, it wasn't every day you were threatened by a pen, either. And then there was that glowing mist that she thought was possibly some aerosolized biotoxin but which had no effect on the surrounding environment, other than making the stranger more coherent and therefore more likely to kill her. Why _did_ she lie about him?

"Credentials check out," said Agent Bauer, handing Abby a printout of Masterson's file.

"Thanks. Did he say anything else?"

Bauer hesitated. "Well, no... Not anything pertinent, anyway."

"Anything _not_ pertinent?"

"He said that I only had about four more years to live, if I was lucky, and that 'humans are like little paper people' or something to that effect. Then he laughed at me for… a while."

Abby sighed. "Okay, let's see where he needs to go."

"You're not going to like it," Bauer warned.

She read through the printout: Underground Weapons Sales Specialist was his title. That put him squarely in her department. Maybe it was karma, she thought, if that was a real thing. Karma was punishing her for lying. At least she could properly keep an eye on him. "Alright," she told Bauer, "you can release him."

The plan had been to get rid of Masterson as soon as possible. His actually being an agent, however, threw this plan out the window. And now, instead of forgetting that she ever met him, she was about to lead him around the office like a new hire. If it became obvious that he was lying or that he was a threat, she resolved to inform someone right away, even if it meant a reprimand. But first she was going to get as much information out of him as possible.

Bauer came back into the hallway a few minutes later with Masterson in tow. He had changed and was now wearing a finely tailored business suit from God knows where, and the blood on his hands was gone. His face showed an odd combination of interest and indifference, like he was walking through a museum he just happened to wander into without realizing it.

"This way, Agent Masterson."

They took the elevator from the sub-basement, where the interrogation room was, and headed for the Analysis Directorate on Floor 3. Abby hoped for a nice awkward silence during the ride, but nothing was going her way today and she honestly should have known better.

"So," Masterson said quietly, "does the CIA interrogate and imprison _all_ of its new employees on the first day?"

"Only the fake ones."

He smiled. "I have credentials, in case you didn't hear. I'm an _agent_." He elongated the word to taunt her.

"Why were you covered in blood?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"What?"

"In the Archive, you were covered in blood and practically murderous. Well, _literally_ murderous."

He looked like he was trying to remember. "I wasn't actually going to-"

"And why did you ask me if you were a woman?"

"Eh... did I?"

"Quite distressingly."

He sighed. "I have had a very, _very_ long day."

She decided it was best not to push. Not now, anyway. "My name is Agent Reyes, by the way. You'll be in my department."

"Oh, you have a name. That's nice..."

The elevator opened onto Floor 3 and they headed into the Tank, a large, open room filled with maps and TV screens and people running around in varying levels of urgency. It was the main hub of activity, where operations and analysis met and where crises were dealt with. It was also the place that most resembled every cliché TV version of the CIA.

Abby was curious to see Masterson's reaction. But when she turned around he was gone.

"You don't say?" she heard from a distance. Tracking back she saw him leaning over and whispering to Mandy, one of the interns, who was giggling and flashing her nicest smile.

"Ahem," Abby interrupted.

Masterson ignored her. "Go on, love. You were saying?"

Mandy shot her a brief death stare before resuming their conversation.

Abby was livid. "Do you mind? We are on a schedule." They weren't, of course, but it was _her_ time he was wasting.

He looked up and pretended to notice her for the first time, which added that extra bit of insult. "Oh, I was just chatting with Miss Havorski here, since you didn't bother to introduce us." She gave him the most threatening look she could muster. "Lead the way," he said, throwing Mandy one last smile.

They finally made it to her little corner in one of the quieter sections of the Tank. Thankfully Agent Swain was out for the day, so she didn't have to worry about him eavesdropping. Masterson took a seat in a chair on the other side of her desk and started scanning the immediate area with delighted interest.

She opened the personnel file on her computer and navigated to his credentials. The bio was standard; it listed his most recent posts and his specialty. The actual CV page, however, was blank except for a string of text at the top that read "[insert impressive-but-believable credentials here]." His psychological evaluation file just said "needs one." It was like someone had been planning a long-term infiltration but got bored halfway through forging the data. How could the security team not have noticed this?

"It says here you're part of a joint US-UK task force on underground weapons sales."

"What? Oh yes. Love a good underground weapon."

"So you deal with black markets too, then?"

He smirked. "When the need arises."

She was not going to guess what that meant. "Forgive me, but I have a hard time believing any of this is true."

He pretended to look offended.

"You've never even seen a dangerous weapon, have you?" She challenged.

"My dear, you have no idea."

"So I'm supposed to believe you're an expert?" She still was not completely convinced he wasn't a hobo. "Okay, tell me how a nuclear bomb works."

He put his feet up on her desk. "Are you testing me?"

Several people glanced over at them with sadistic expectation on their faces. They knew Abby had a temper, especially when it came to disrespect. But she wasn't going to satisfy them with an outburst today, even though she had a very strong desire to shoot this man in the head.

The look she gave Masterson must have communicated her displeasure, however, because he put his feet down and folded his arms instead.

"Fine. Nuclear bomb: high-explosive initiator used to compress fissile material mass into a supercritical mass. Once fission is achieved energy is transferred to a secondary structure where fusion occurs. Boom. Laughably primitive, but effective for the less classy forms of warfare that your lot like so much."

It was both impressive and infuriating. Abby did not have a response and Masterson caught on to this right away. He certainly was a _perceptive_ bastard.

"Speechless? Poor thing. Can I ask questions now? Or are you still testing me?"

She gestured for him to continue, fearing that if she kept talking nothing would come out but a string of obscenities.

"Do I get a desk?"

"No."

"Can I have my screwdriver back?"

"No."

"Where is the Archive?"

"Why?"

"I left something down there, I think."

She folded her arms. "I'm not taking you back down there. For all I know you'll try to attack me again-"

"I didn't attack you the first time."

She glowered at him. "An attempt was made."

"I'll find my way down there even if you don't tell me. I have-"

Abby slammed her hands on the desk. " _You have credentials_. Yes, I know."

Before he could respond Abby's boss, Agent Brigham, showed up out of nowhere. She looked unusually tired. "Everything okay, Agent Reyes? Ah! I see Mister Masterson has joined us. Good… good. Great. Back to work." She wandered off looking confused, which was uncharacteristic for a woman that was constantly on top of everything.

The surprise of Agent Brigham knowing Masterson must have shown on Abby's face. He smiled at her. "What was it you were saying about not believing me?"

If Mandy the intern hadn't approached them a second later with a stack of folders in her arms, Abby might have actually punched Masterson in the face. Again. "What do you want, Mandy?" she muttered.

"Here are the files you asked for, Agent Reyes," she said, thrusting the folders in Abby's general direction without taking her eyes off of her newfound crush. She was grinning stupidly at Masterson, who winked at her.

"Thanks."

She did not leave. Masterson glanced briefly at Abby, almost as if he was making sure that she was watching, before turning back to Mandy and smiling at her. "Mandy, dear, would you happen know where the Archive is?" A soft voice, a slight touch on the hand-it was well done.

"Sub-basement 3." She didn't even hesitate.

He turned back to Abby with a subtle but triumphant look that made her want to decapitate him. At this point she thought it probably wasn't healthy to have so many violent thoughts in one day.

Mandy did not like the several seconds he spent not looking at _her_. "I can take you down there, if you want-"

"No, thanks. I'll find it on my own." He waved her off without so much as a glance. She walked away looking dejected.

Not wanting to give him another moment of satisfaction, Abby turned her attention toward the folders Mandy had retrieved. They were a set of sealed documents that came from a particularly nasty terrorist organization that was known for its ability to acquire chlorine, a common ingredient in chemical weapons. She had been hoping to find information about one of the missing buildings she was hunting. Pictures could be doctored and erased, digitized files deleted. But hand-written notes stolen from terrorist leadership were hard to fake, and these ones had been sealed and untouched since their acquisition.

For a while she forgot that Masterson was there. Analysis was an all-consuming mental exercise, and when she was in the act everything else seemed to fade away. It wasn't until he spoke that she came out of her trance.

"'Second Commission for the Saudi Network?' What does that mean?"

He was reading from the top of one of the files, which was (poorly) handwritten in Masri, the Egyptian dialect of Arabic.

"You speak Arabic?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

Abby shook her head. "That's awfully convenient," she said. "Which dialects do you know?"

"Uh… all of them?"

"All of them."

"Of course."

"Really? There are over a hundred different dialects of Arabic. And you know every single one?"

"You don't believe me?" He picked a page at random and started to read out in English. "Seventy-five thousand kilos of product to be transported from Cairo airport bunker via package truck to facility in Dahab. Transfer to be arranged by-"

"Give me that." She ripped it out of his hands and read through it herself. From what she could tell his translation was flawless. He had even interpreted a few words that she wouldn't have known. It was the first useful thing he'd done all day.

All suspicions she had about him were temporarily forgotten. "Great," she said, handing him a stack of papers. "Translate these. I'm looking for any mention of a facility called Dashtak Hesami, possibly in connection with chemical weapons manufacturing and/or storage."

He seemed extremely annoyed by the idea that he was being put to work. "And why are we looking for this place?"

"Because somehow it has managed to disappear."

"What do you mean disappear?"

"I mean two weeks ago there was a massive complex in that area and now there is no sign that anything had ever been built there."

"Maybe you were just looking-"

"I was not looking in the wrong place. Trust me. What's worse is that every mention of it is gone too. All the files and satellite photos and communications that recorded its existence are suddenly gone."

"Gone how?"

"I don't know… It's like someone just erased it from history."

This seemed to grab Masterson's attention. "Has anything else gone missing?"

"Yes. Several confidential informants of mine and three other similar buildings in different areas of the world."

"When did things start disappearing?"

"About two weeks ago."

"And your idea was to pull out handwritten notes?"

She rolled her eyes. "These 'notes' were made by terrorist leadership, written, no doubt in a bunker somewhere, and inaccessible since their discovery by one of our teams two years ago. If someone was trying to remove all record of Dashtak Hesami, they would not have been able to alter these documents. And I know the facility features prominently in here somewhere because I was one of the analysts that read them when they were found."

"Oh," he said. "That's actually somewhat clever, I suppose."

"You _shower_ me with praise."

He started glancing through each sheet in turn, much too quickly to actually be reading them, and before she could ask what the hell he was doing he stopped. "No mention of that place anywhere," he concluded.

"How did you-"

"Can I have a computer?"

"Why?"

"Do you want to find this place or not?"

Abby hesitated. "Fine," she mumbled, getting up from her seat and gesturing for him to take it. He sat down, put his hands over the keyboard, and then froze.

"If I do this, you will take me down to the Archive." He said it as a statement rather than a proposition.

"Uh, no. I don't even know what you're going to do."

He put his hands down and gave her a look similar to one you might give a three-year-old you were impatient with. "I'm going to find your building for you. Obviously."

"Yeah, super obvious. How?"

"I have what you might call 'unique experience' with data networks. They're simple things, really. But people rarely use them to their full potential."

Abby was torn between keeping Masterson away from any and all CIA assets and seeing what he was capable of doing. A stream of annoying little thoughts ran through her head: he didn't have cleared network access; he wasn't set up in the system; anything he did would be under her name...

It didn't matter what she decided, though, because he had already started.

Minutes went by in silence. She tried to track exactly what he was doing on the screen but it was impossible. Subroutines within subroutines and an algorithm or two-that was all she could recognize.

He stopped abruptly. "Huh."

"What? What did you find?"

The annoyed look was back, but it was mingled with something akin to interest, possibly excitement. She was starting to hate how confusing his face could be. "A challenge, apparently," he said. "Give me the name of something else that went missing recently."

She wrote down three other names, along with their coordinates, which she had memorized after weeks of plugging them into database queries. He entered the new information into whatever search algorithm he had created.

"Huh," he said again.

" _What?_ "

Without looking away from the screen he snapped his fingers. "Fetch me some kind of memory device that I can store this on."

Her glare would have melted metal but he wasn't looking. "O-kay…" she said through gritted teeth, and headed across the floor to the storage safe. All portable drives had to be signed out and signed back in within 24 hours so it took her a while to finally get one.

When she got back to her desk five minutes later Masterson was gone.

It was difficult to decide whether she should panic or feel relieved. Then she remembered that he had just been given full access to the CIA's internal network under her username and panic came out the winner. Her screen had nothing on it except an open notepad document that said, "buildings time-erased. you're welcome."

…And his screwdriver was gone. The locked drawer of her desk was open and empty.

She ran for it-back across the Tank, with eyes following her as she went, then through the entry corridor and into the elevator.

* * *

The Archive felt much bigger when you had to find something quickly, Abby thought. The darkness didn't help, either. She headed off to the right where the imagery section was, thinking he would have to return to the general area where she found him. At this point it hit her that what she was doing probably qualified as really, really stupid. She was chasing after someone that she already knew was dangerous, a liar, and a little unhinged, and who definitely knew that she would come looking for him here.

She proceeded anyway.

As quietly as possible she inched along the shelves, holding her breath to listen for any sound, until she reached the same corner where they had first met. No one was there.

Three aisles later she came across a door built into the outer wall of the Archive. It was tall and wooden and did not match any of the crude, 1960s concrete architecture around it. The placement was odd, too, as if it was cut into the wall instead of being part of the building. Light shone from the crack at the bottom.

It could have been any number of things: a broom closet, an extra storage room, maybe even the bathroom. Yes, that made sense. Masterson was hiding in the bathroom. She put her ear up against the door and listened. There was a low humming sound and possibly footsteps, though it was difficult to tell. Slowly, and with the words " _don't do it_ " repeating over and over in her head, she tried the knob.

Despite it looking three hundred years old, the door opened silently. Behind it was… well it definitely wasn't a bathroom. It looked more like a massive control center, reminiscent of the Tank, with bright modern walls and a central area that featured some kind of equipment. The humming sound was louder in here, and was accompanied by several varieties of beeping.

Masterson circled the central whatever-it-was, fiddling with things and glancing at various visual displays. Every once in a while he would mutter "no," in an almost desperate voice. Abby stood there for several minutes, watching him, her mind struggling to comprehend any of it. When he finally noticed her he stopped dead, like a deer caught in headlights.

They stared at each other for what felt like ages, until finally Abby found her voice.

"So… I have a question."


	6. The Other Side

Breaking through the transduction barrier was like breaking a basic law of the Universe. You just didn't do it. You couldn't do it. You should not be able to do it.

The Master's TARDIS had broken through the transduction barrier, passed into the Void, then broke through a second transduction barrier and into a Time Vortex belonging to an entirely different universe. Thankfully this new reality also had Time Lords, otherwise the Vortex would not exist and he would have disintegrated upon entry. A comforting fact, but useless to him now. It wasn't worth it, at this point, figuring out how it happened. The only concern now was figuring out how to do it again so that he could get home.

Being in another universe made him feel like a fish out of water. He had no connection to the established timeline, which wreaked havoc on his admittedly sensitive Time Lord psyche. And there was no easy way to gage where he was in history, even if the immediate environment was recognizable to him. He may have been able to tell that he was on Earth in the 21st century, but anything he deduced from that fact could only ever be a guess. For all he knew, Germany won the Second World War. Or maybe he was trapped in the Soviet States of America.

Did he even exist in this universe? Did the Doctor? If Earth had never encountered Daleks or Cybermen, had the Doctor ever even been here?

"Damn it all to Hell," he swore, his arm elbow-deep in the console unit, one hand holding a wrench, the other wrapped around some unidentified but undoubtedly important wire that was smoldering. A few of the TARDIS's systems were still online: he had life support, gravity regulation, and a working chameleon circuit. But all of the navigational equipment was rendered useless, cut off from the center of origin and unable to be recalibrated. And to top it off his dematerialization circuit had met an untimely end. Again.

He was stuck. It was the Mondasian ship all over, only this time it was a planet with vastly inferior technology. Maybe he could take over this society too - he did, after all, find himself in a uniquely privileged position, having access to the CIA. It was no UNIT, but they had bombs and drones and such, didn't they?

A sudden thought interrupted his diabolical musings - why _did_ he have access to the CIA? Perhaps some alternate version of him was already here, infiltrating the place in some clever and effective way. But then, how could he have guessed the other Master's pseudonym so accurately?

"Not a good idea, love."

The voice came out of nowhere and he jumped so violently that he hit his head off the bottom of the console structure. He spun on the spot and held out the wrench he was using rather stupidly, wielding it like a club. There was nothing to clobber, however. The room was empty.

"Still rubbish at maintenance, I see." They were above him now, whoever it was. The voice sounded female and painfully familiar. He ascended the stairs to the upper level, wrench in hand, wondering how someone could have possibly breached the TARDIS doors.

She was sitting in one of the pilot seats, legs crossed, Victorian skirts perfectly pressed, twirling his laser screwdriver between her fingers like a tiny baton.

Two thoughts crossed his mind at that moment: one, a heavy wrench made a perfectly good projectile; and two, he was most definitely dreaming.

"I killed you," he blurted.

His future self frowned and pouted her lips. "Now what sort of a greeting is that?"

"I'm dreaming. This is a dream. Or a nightmare."

"Hmm. Maybe."

He felt a sudden twinge in his back. "I killed you. Two days ago. You should be dead."

She shrugged. "Whatever you say, my dear. I was only trying to save you from certain and horrible death, but if you want to pretend I don't exist, that is perfectly fine." She scratched the side of her face absentmindedly with the end of his screwdriver.

He considered throwing the wrench at her to see if she was real, but he was not yet ready to commit to the idea. "What are you talking about?"

"You were about to ruin your dimensional circuits." He felt his brow furrow in confusion. She rolled her eyes. "Dimensional circuits? The things that allow you to stabilize-"

"I KNOW WHAT THEY DO!"

She smiled and blinked slowly before responding. "Yes," she muttered, "obviously. That's why you were about to remove them."

"Shut up!" He shut his eyes tight and covered his ears like a child wishing away the monsters under his bed. "You're not real."

When he opened his eyes his future self was gone, and the screwdriver lay on the center console where he had left it. He stood still for several minutes, listening, waiting for her to reappear in some other corner of the room to mock him again. Nothing happened.

On the one hand, he was relieved that she wasn't real. On the other…

There was undoubtedly a rational explanation for what he'd just seen, but the only ideas he could think of at that moment all included words like "ghost" and "haunted" and, least appealing of all, "mad." He returned to the lower level to continue his maintenance, but upon seeing the melted remains of the dimensional circuits he gave up and threw the wrench on the ground in a huff.

He had a sudden urge to search the entire TARDIS for any sign of his future self. No, that would be ridiculous, because she wasn't really there. It was a hallucination, nothing more. But why was he hallucinating in the first place? He knew regenerations could go wrong; some people ended up with extra limbs, or parts from other species, or faces that looked… unfinished. Maybe his aborted regeneration left side effects of the psychological variety.

Back on the upper level he reset the instrument panels and attempted another recalibration of the navigational system. The screwdriver was returned to his jacket pocket for safe keeping. He turned around to sit down and wait out the recalibration, only to find his seat occupied.

"You're not getting away from me that easily, pet."

His screwdriver was out of his pocket and in his hand before he realized what he was doing. A second later the chair had a smoldering hole in it. But she still sat there, unharmed, untouched, smiling mockingly at his pathetic attempt to kill her a second time.

"A valiant effort," she declared dramatically.

He cringed. Maybe if he just ignored her, she would sink back into his subconscious.

"No," she said in response to his thought.

"Leave me alone. You're not real."

She laughed. "I'm as real as you, my dear."

"No, you're a figment of my imagination. I'm still recovering from the regeneration-"

"Regeneration? Is that what you call it? Looked more like motion sickness to me. You're not pregnant, are you? Or is that _morning_ sickness? I can never remember-"

" _GOOD LORD_ SHUT UP!"

She held her hands up in mock surrender, then drew her fingers across her lips as if zipping them shut. It was so very much like him he thought he really was going to be sick for a moment. She smiled sweetly in response to the look of utter loathing he was giving her.

He circled the center console again to check how the recalibration was going. Or possibly just to look busy and distracted. One of the two.

"Find anything?"

"No," he grumbled.

"Did you check the signature readings?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"There is no time signature. We're- I'm cut off from the Center completely."

"Obviously."

He shot her a nasty look as he passed on his third rotation around the console, only vaguely aware that he was walking in circles for no apparent reason.

"Can I help?"

"No," he said through gritted teeth.

"If I could just offer a bit of advice-"

"NO!"

Halfway through circle number four he noticed a figure standing at the entrance to the TARDIS. A human, staring at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes and a slightly open mouth. He stopped and peered at it, trying to determine whether it was another hallucination. The TARDIS door stood open behind it, suggesting it was probably real and had wandered in the way humans always manage to wander in at the most inconvenient times.

"So," said Agent Reyes, "I have a question."

He didn't respond, just continued to stare, curious about what she was going to do. It wasn't that he cared she was there. She had nothing over him, not even his screwdriver, so really he could kill her at any time. What bothered him was the fact that she shouldn't have been able to get in at all. Regardless, his plan of returning to the upper levels of the CIA building and utilizing his new-found identity if he couldn't get the TARDIS working was shot out the window.

"Was this room always here?" she asked.

"Y...es."

"What's it for?"

"What does it look like it's for?"

She looked around the room, her eyes settling on the console behind him which was beeping and blinking. "Well, it's not a bathroom."

That was an odd thing to say. "No, it's not."

"Is this why you wanted to come back down here so badly? Is the thing you were looking for in here?"

"In a way, yes."

"What does that mean?"

He hesitated. This felt familiar. It was that moment, he realized - the one the Doctor always had when he'd acquired a new servant (or companion, or whatever) and he was just about to tell them all about the TARDIS and its magical powers. Well _he_ had no interest in acquiring a companion and showing them the universe in a pathetic attempt to make himself feel special, thank you very much. He had to get rid of her.

Humans possessed weak minds and were uniquely susceptible to telepathic influence. He could wipe her memory, or take control of her mind and make her do his bidding, like he had done to her boss and the men that stood watch over him in the interrogation room.

He took a step closer, advancing on his prey. "You are looking at the most intelligent machine in the universe."

She narrowed her eyes. "Okay. Why is it beeping?"

"It is indicating that it has readied itself for battle and is about to destroy the entirety of the planet on my command." He tried to sound as intimidating as possible as he inched himself towards her.

"Uh-huh." Reyes folded her arms.

"I have infiltrated the most powerful nation on Earth and within hours I will have removed all of your defenses and taken complete control of your government."

"With a closet?"

"It-is-not-a-closet," he said with a twinge of annoyance. "It is my ship. I'm from another planet, you see. I travel in time and space. I have discovered your world and have determined it to be weak and vulnerable. This is an invasion. You are being invaded." He was close to her now, almost within reach. All he needed was eye contact…

"Oh. So you're not just a hobo then."

"No. I am not."

"You're a _space_ hobo."

He rolled his eyes involuntarily, which was not conducive to making eye contact. At this proximity, however, he noticed that she was holding something small and rectangular in her hand. "What is that?"

"It's the memory drive you asked for. Well, demanded. When we were upstairs. Just before you escaped down to your space closet."

What on Earth would he have needed a memory drive for? The state of his TARDIS and the sudden appearance of ghost-future-him had driven from his mind all that had occurred upstairs. He had completely forgot that he'd helped Agent Reyes look for her mysteriously disappearing buildings, which were obviously just the result of someone using outdated time technology-

Oh. _Oh._

"Oh," he said out loud.

"What?"

"Er- nothing. Let's get back to work, shall we?" He put an arm over her shoulder and steered her out of the TARDIS, pulling the door closed behind them.

"I thought you were going to invade Earth." She had an unusual skill for impregnating her words with copious amounts of sarcasm.

"Not today, apparently."

They headed towards the lift, the Master searching his memory for whatever devices were capable of achieving time erasure and the civilizations that possessed them. A plan was forming in his head. The Long Game, once again.

Phase One: gather information. Determine what resources are available. Establish key players.

Phase Two: gain access to resources. Increase influence among players.

Phase Three: use resources and influence to infiltrate whoever was using time technology so that he could get the hell off of this backward rock and never look back.

"I'm sorry," Agent Reyes said, shrugging his arm off as they entered the lift, "but do you really expect me to believe you're an alien?"

That was a tough one. He considered wiping her memory again, but now that he thought about it, she was probably his best resource at the moment. He could pretend like it was all a joke and that he really was human. But that would require extra effort to hide what he was really doing over the long haul and would probably get boring very quickly.

"Yes," he responded. "I'm really an alien." She looked unconvinced. "And… whatever erased your buildings from existence was alien too." Redirect attention. Emphasize shared goals. He'd done this so many times before.

"And that room downstairs… that's really your ship? How can a room be a ship?"

Did the Doctor's servants always ask this many questions? "It's a secret," he muttered.

She sensed the sarcasm. "Uh-huh. So I take it John Masterson isn't your real name?"

"No." He smiled menacingly. "I am called The Master," he said in his best sinister voice.

"Master of what?"

"What?"

"Master of what?"

"No, that's my name."

"Really? Is that like a sex thing?"

" _What?_ "

The lift doors opened onto the third floor and they walked into the lobby. "Yeah," Reyes continued, "you know, like, 'Master,' 'Mistress...'"

"Could you just- Don't- _Stop asking questions_."

They walked across the big room with all the useless displays and dark mood lighting and back to the corner that housed Agent Reyes's desk. "Well," she said, "I'm not calling you that."

"Of course not. I am under cover here. You wouldn't want to expose-"

"No, it's a ridiculous name. I'm not going to go around calling you 'Master' like I'm your servant."

"But you _are-_ " He thought better of it. Best to get in her good graces, he decided, if that was possible. "Fine. Call me whatever you want."

They sat down on either side of the desk and eyed each other like sheriff and outlaw in a noon-time shootout.

"You don't believe anything I said, do you?"

"Just find my buildings for me," the Agent demanded with authority, "then I might reconsider your claims."

"Fair enough." She gave him a laptop and together they set to work. Phase One had begun.


End file.
